A terrible dream:
I was in the downstairs bathroom about to sit on the toilet when I was gripped with terrible cramps.
I recognized the pain immediately as labor pains. I didn't know until that moment that I was pregnant; but I braced myself to start pushing when I felt the baby slide down. I instinctively knew it was too early. I was standing; squatting with my pants and underwear around my ankles as I delivered a pulsing, opaque red amniotic sac into my own hands. I gently placed the intact amniotic sac on the floor between my feet. The umbilical cord was still attached to the placenta inside me and blood was pouring everywhere. I started screaming.
My mother was crouching halfway up the stairs trying to look into the bathroom as Shane walked through the front door. I called to him. Assessing the scene he immediately started pulling on the umbilical cord; yanking it down to try and detach the placenta. I started screaming, telling him to stop, that he was going to kill me. I frantically grabbed the cord above his hands to counterbalance the strength of him pulling. I told him he couldn't pull the placenta out; that it needed to pass naturally; that he was going to cause me to bleed out or go septic.
Suddenly, with a horrible, slippery wet sound, the placenta was delivered and we were struck dumb. I placed it on the ground next to the wriggling sac.
Covered in blood I turned to the sink to wash my hands. When I turned back my mother was putting everything into a plastic shopping bag. She said, "we have to try to flush this," and started to place the whole bag in the toilet. I yelled in a hoarse voice, "He's alive, he's alive!" I wrenched the bag from her hands and placed it back on the ground. Opening it I quickly sliced the amniotic sac open from end to end, reached in and gently lifted my baby out.
He didn't look like John, he was more like a miniature little boy. He reminded me of Kubo. He was so white, with wavy long brown hair down to his shoulders. His chest was rising and falling with labored breaths. I stumbled with him to the kitchen; my pants still twisted around my ankles, and placed him on the counter by the sink. I knew he was dying. I stood with him, for an indeterminate amount of time, watching him struggle to breath; breathing in time with him. Finally he stopped.
I woke then.